One Sunday (38 page)

It was foolish not to have worn gloves, and more than foolish to have worn these shoes, even totally insane, except that if she'd worn her old walking shoes it would have meant that she couldn't have brought this pair, and they were her second best and she liked them, though she'd liked them better before the left one started rubbing her heel. Not much use thinking about her heel or her hands, not much use worrying about anything, really, except needing a drink of water, which she could get when she reached the station, so the sooner she reached it the better.

It was odd. She was feeling sore, but no longer afraid. Maybe when something terrible happens, it changes the way you think about all of the ridiculous things you used to worry about, like suddenly you understand that being scared of your own shadow is pretence so someone will hold your hand, cuddle you, prove they love you.

Rachael had loved her, and she was dead. Freddy had called her sweet, sweet Helen, so he must have loved her, and he was dead too. Aunt Bertha still loved her, and she was alive, and she was going to live forever, so that's where Helen was going, as fast as her feet could carry her.

Moonlight was seeping through the forest ahead and it looked magical, like some enchanted land where witches dwelled and cast their spells, and there was scaredy-cat Helen Squire, escaping though that enchanted forest all alone, no one to hold her blistered hand.

The case began to rub her shoulder so she lifted it onto her head, finding a balance there – if she held her chin high and kept the case steady with one hand. It was good practice for her posture: chest out, tummy in, shoulders back.

She began counting steps, expecting at least a hundred more, when suddenly she came out of the trees onto the ploughed firebreak. It didn't seem far enough, but before her was Bridge Road, and not far up it she could see Curtin's lights glowing through the trees. They had a generator, and their house was always well lit.

At the boundary fence she tilted her head, allowing the case to slide off and bounce free, then, as Rachael had done, she placed her foot on the bottom wire, lifted the one above and squeezed through, picked up her case and ran with it into the centre of the road. She took a deep, deep breath of pure moonlight then, filling her lungs with it. It felt so good and clean and free. Rachael would have been so proud of her. ‘Good on you, Heli,' she would have said. ‘Good for you, Heli.'

There was no one behind or in front of her. Any view the Curtins had from their windows was screened by their trees. Now she only had to get past Green's house, which was set well back from the road, then over the bridge, and she would have reached the five-sixths mark – not a long sixth, just a symbolic sixth – then the dairy on the other side of the bridge, and the station not too far down.

She didn't like Green's dogs. No one liked them. She was allowably scared of those mad barking things, which anyone had a right to be scared of. They always hid in the trees where the bridge ended, then darted on their bellies to chase anything that dared to cross over – mainly bike riders and cars. If they chased her, then she'd put her case on her head again and keep on walking as tall as she could. ‘Sit down, you cur,' she'd say, as if she meant it. That's what Rachael had done when Johnson's dogs came barking at her. ‘Never let a dog see you are afraid, Heli,' she'd said. ‘Just stand tall, keep your hands out of the way and sound louder than the dog. Don't run, because if you run, the dogs get excited and chase you.' Helen hadn't heeded that warning the night they tried to leave home. She'd screamed, thrown her case down and run. Tonight she'd remember.

She stopped in the shadow of a tree, looked at Green's property, then took a handkerchief from beneath her sleeve, folded it, making a cushion for her hand and wondering why she hadn't done it before. Turning her eyes to the bridge and her mind away from Green's dogs and her sore heel, she walked forward.

Australia was lucky. There was nothing that could harm you in the Australian bush, no man-eating lions or tigers – only snakes. She shuddered, wondering how many snakes she'd nearly stood on down by the river and in the wood paddock. Why hadn't she thought about them then? Lucky she hadn't – anyway, it wouldn't matter if a whole family of snakes had lined up on that bridge to wait for her, or if six man-eating lions had escaped from the circus and joined forces with Green's dogs, she would not turn around and run home. Tomorrow she'd be on that train, and tomorrow night she'd be sleeping in Aunt Bertha's spare room and Aunt Bertha would tell her what she should do next.

How long since she'd left the house? An hour? Less than an hour? No one would open her door before morning, and even then probably not before nine. And if they did open it tonight, they'd see hair on the pillow and a hump beneath the sheet, because she'd put her big doll in her bed, plus two pillows. Mrs Johnson might find that doll at nine, but by then Helen would be on the train to Melbourne – and her father and Judge Cochran would discover too late that she had been more robust and able than they'd thought, but not half as tractable.

The Cochrans arrived just after eight, and by the time she packed her case it must have been close to nine. She'd meant to check the time in the kitchen, but that clock was either broken or Mrs Johnson had too much to do to bother winding it. It hadn't been ticking last night either, when Johnson's dogs started barking.

‘It's after two. Has that fool come back here to further disrupt this house?' Nicholas said.

She opened the courtyard door but Dave's truck wasn't there, and she was about to close it when she sighted Rachael's frock, white against the bluestone courtyard wall. She was perched on a small stone table, taking her shoes off.

Nicholas stepped around Helen and out onto the terrace. ‘God save me from daughters,' he said.

‘Or better still, dearest Daddy, God save daughters from you,' Rachael replied.

‘Did you take his savings?'

She looked like a naughty pixie, perched on a mushroom, a pixie in white. And why was she wearing that dress she'd worn at her wedding? She detested it. ‘A fool and his money are soon parted, dearest Daddy,' she said.

Rule: Daddy was a term used by the lower classes. It was not to be used by a Squire daughter.

‘Your husband has been here looking for you. I know all about your latest game, Missie. You're driving that man insane.'

‘Then I do hope the men in white coats take him away soon, dearest Daddy, and I hope they have room for you on board. Can you get my old walking shoes for me, please, Heli, and find me a few clothes. Everything I own that still fits me was in my case, and he found it.'

‘He brought it over here. It's in the sitting room, Rae.'

‘Oh, give that hero another medal. I thought he'd burn everything.'

‘Go to your bed, Helen, and stay there. And you go with her, Missie. We'll discuss this in the morning.'

‘You forget, Daddy. I now belong to another.'

‘Get inside! Do you give no thought at all to the precious burden you're carrying? Have you no memory of that last infant we buried!'

Helen heard no more. She remembered Jennifer's tiny girl's death, remembered Arthur holding that baby for hours, howling over it. Didn't want to remember that.

She went to the sitting room and stuffed everything back into the case. She was opening the sitting room's French windows when she heard Olivia call out.

Left alone to make Arthur's scrambled eggs, Olivia had cracked two into a bowl and ended up with a third on the table because Arthur was in the pantry, looking for his liquorice maybe, but he found Mrs Johnson's cooking sherry instead. He'd been drinking the night he'd attacked Ruby, so now he was only allowed to drink alcohol in his own room – if he agreed to Nicholas locking his door.

Helen found the liquorice, hidden behind the flour tin. It was probably stale and hard, but she pushed the bag at him. ‘Here's your liquorice, Arthur. Mummy doesn't like to see you drinking.'

He tried to speak. Maybe he tried to say Helen, or liquorice, or go to hell, but with only part of his tongue left to speak with, and a throat that produced appalling sounds, all words sounded much the same. He drank again from the bottle, then offered it in exchange for the bag as the kitchen's rear door opened and Rachael's head popped through.

‘I've got to go, Heli. Chris might be looking for me. Where's my case?'

‘Here.'

‘Don't choke on that, Artie.' She was halfway in when Nicholas entered via the walkway, saw her case and kicked it beneath the table, where Olivia was attempting to scoop up egg yolk with a knife – egg sliding off her knife, Arthur standing there in his brown striped pyjamas, stuffing liquorice into that gap of mouth, Rachael out that door fast.

Helen took charge of the mixing bowl. She placed it beneath the lip of the table and scooped the egg yolk in with her hand – too bad about the bits of shell. The task in more capable hands, Olivia left the kitchen.

Helen placed a knob of lard in the frying pan and moved the pan over the central hotplate. Arthur's few teeth working hard, tongue working hard, he listened to the war in the garden.

A Squire never raises his voice in argument.

A Squire keeps family secrets in the family.

A Squire does not pursue his daughter around the vegetable garden at 2 am. Nicholas was breaking his own rules.

‘Get inside that house now and settle down, start behaving like a married woman. You are carrying my grandchild, Missie. Get inside and sit down.'

Mustn't mention grandchild in front of Arthur. Mustn't mention scars. Mustn't mention war, or Germans, or learning to read again with his fingertips. Mustn't mention a slate and chalk –

‘It's got another set of grandparents too, and it's got a father, and unless you accept its father, you won't get within a hundred miles of your grandchild.'

‘By God, I'll have you put away, you defiant bitch of a girl.' Nicholas angry was Nicholas real, and when he was real his voice rose high. He sounded like a woman.

The lard still a white lump in the pan, Helen cut it in half, wanting it to melt fast. She cut it in quarters then poured in the eggs. Arthur was quiet, standing at the window trying to see into the garden, fighting a mouthful of liquorice while that verbal war raged on, and for once Nicholas wasn't winning. Rachael was going to Melbourne and she wanted her case.

And Helen was going with her. There was heaps of time. The train didn't leave until eight on Sunday mornings. Just get those eggs cooked. Just get Arthur out of the kitchen and back into bed with a dose of his calming medicine. No one could handle him, not his paid companions, not Nicholas. All anyone could do was keep him away from alcohol, dose him up with an opiate and give him whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it – except what he really wanted. He was thirty-five years old, a strong man with a strong man's needs and the face of Frankenstein's monster.

Her concentration on the eggs, and her ear tuned in to Rachael and Nicholas in the garden, for a moment she didn't notice that Arthur was choking. Until he stumbled towards her, his mouth black, his few remaining teeth black – rotting from the inside out. She stepped back, watching him, wanting him to choke, to fall down dead on the floor so at least that cruel tale would finish.

‘Nicholas! Nicholas.' Olivia had entered carrying a decanter of wine.

But a powerful survival instinct was built in to Frankenstein's monster, and he vomited black liquorice all over the floor. Olivia, disgusted, turned away.

Nicholas came inside and cleaned up the mess with newspaper, then a tea-towel, throwing the whole mess into the firebox. He snatched away the bag of liquorice before Arthur could help himself to more and tossed it into the firebox to sizzle and leak stinking smoke while he wiped the floor with a dishrag that he also threw into the firebox.

Olivia, dodging, poured wine into a thick glass tumbler. Arthur squawked and felt for his bag of liquorice, smelling it burn, coming after it. Helen stirred the beaten eggs in the pan. His hand on her back, his monster face too close, that crawling centipede wanting to crawl on her own face and bite.

‘Your sister is cooking your supper, son. Will you sit down quietly and wait! Olivia, get back to your room.'

Rachael nicked in for her case and wanted out again, wanted to change her dress, wanted comfortable shoes and Chris and out of this place, but she stood at the door, watching the chaos and shaking her head, like what the hell else can I do, Heli? She put the case outside and walked back in to take charge, as she'd always been able to take charge of Arthur. ‘What are you up to, Artie? Disturbing the peace again?' she said.

The change that came over his face was immediate. He turned, his hands searching for Rachael, attempting to speak.

‘Freddy's cackleberry mush. I know what you're saying.'

She stepped forward, took his arm and led him to a chair, sat him down then sat beside him, an arm around his shoulder. If anyone loved him when Nicholas brought him home from hospital that first time, it was Rachael. If he made his twisted smile for anyone, he made it for Rachael. If anyone could understand his garbled speech, it was Rachael.

Olivia's glass empty, she wanted the decanter but Nicholas had claimed it, poured his own tumbler full of rich red wine.

Poor panting little man, sitting on an old chair at a battered table where he never sat. Poor stained Nicholas Squire, grandson of a convict, born out of wedlock, drinking expensive wine from a cheap glass tumbler, and twisting at the sagging skin of his neck. That's what he did when the world got too bad, twisted at that hanging skin. Helen, willing those eggs to cook, scraped congealed bits off the sides and bottom of the pan.

Arthur opened Mrs Johnson's table drawer, and took out two wooden spoons to use as drumsticks, offering one to Rachael. And they started drumming out a rhythm on the table, Arthur squawking too many words that all became one. Nicholas watched them, his grandchild safe at his side, his daughter singing Freddy's song.